Bridgestone Invitational notebook: Reavie to join golf elite

Wednesday

Winning a PGA event for the first time changes everything. Chez Reavie realized that after his victory at last week’s Canadian Open.

Winning a PGA event for the first time changes everything. Chez Reavie realized that after his victory at last week’s Canadian Open.

Instead of moving on to the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open for the first time, Reavie found himself on his way to Firestone Country Club for the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational. A two-year tour exemption also will earn him invitations to next week’s PGA Championship and the 2009 Masters.

“Now I’ve opened up a whole bunch of doors that weren’t even in my sights,” Reavie said.

Reavie spent a few years on the Nationwide Tour before moving on to the PGA Tour this season. He led from wire-to-wire at the Canadian Open and became the tour’s first rookie winner this year.

Victory No. 1 helped Reavie jump 178 places to 184th in the world rankings. It came a lot earlier than the 26-year-old from Scottsdale, Ariz., expected.

“I’ve been playing really well the last two months, and I just haven’t been scoring very well,” Reavie said. “... About a month ago, I started really hitting the ball solid and I started making putts. So I decided instead of going home and taking time off, I was going to play my way through it, just keep playing and let it kind of come to me.”

The added significance of a first career PGA win was initially lost on Reavie. He didn’t know he had qualified for the Bridgestone Invitational until CBS golf analyst David Feherty broke the news on the final green.

“It hadn’t even crossed my mind,” Reavie said.

Now Reavie is eager to see how he fares at Firestone in his first WGC event.

“I know it’s a very difficult tournament to get into, and it’s the best players in the world that are out here,” Reavie said. “... It’s just truly an honor to be able to play against them this week.”

‘Great One’ texts

Hockey great Wayne Gretzky sent a text message to Reavie, congratulating him on his first PGA win. Reavie once played nine holes with Gretzky, the Phoenix Coyotes head coach.

“I honestly didn’t think he would be paying attention to what I was doing, so that was probably the most shocking,” Reavie said. “(The message) just said, ‘Great playing, nice job, you deserve it, you work hard.’”

Busy stretch

Stuart Appleby would not mind having more time between the tour’s top tournaments. The British Open, Bridgestone Invitational and PGA Championships are all played within a month.

“I would personally like to see the PGA another two to four weeks later,” Appleby said. “We wait for the Masters so much, then we have a nice break ‘til the (U.S.) Open. ... I’d like to see them spaced out relatively evenly, but then you might be clashing with TV ratings in other sports, so there is a TV functional reason why. But as a golfer, I’d like to see a good four to six weeks between majors.”

Talking football

Steelers fan Jim Furyk sees the gap closing in the AFC North.

“The Browns made some good offseason moves,” said Furyk, who has five top-10 finishes at Firestone since 1999. Furyk plans on attending the Browns’ Thursday night home game against Denver on Nov. 6. He also will see a college football game at West Virginia and the Colts and Steelers square off in Pittsburgh that weekend.

“I’ve got about four or five of those planned,” Furyk said of seeing three games in a week. “That’s my vacation.”